Preliminary Material / M. Dillon -- 1. Numbers And Units In Chinese Economic History / Lien-Sheng Yang -- 2. The Economic Basis Of Unity And Division In Chinese History / Ch’Ao-Ting Chi -- 3. China’s Economic Development In Historical Perspective / Samuel P. S. Ho -- 4. Demographic, Political, And Social Transformations Of China, 750–1550 / Robert M. Hartwell -- 5. Famine’s Foes In Ch’ing China / R. Bin Wong and Peter C. Perdue -- 6. Economic Conditions In China: A Brief Survey, January To June, 1932 / Chen Han-Seng -- 7. Economic Disintegration In China / Chen Han-Seng -- 8. Economic Dualism: The Case Of China 1840–1937 / Chi-Ming Hou -- 9. The Burdens Of The Chinese Peasantry / Chen Han-Seng -- 10. Kueichou: An Internal Chinese Colony / J. E. Spencer -- 11. Mountain Economy In Szechuan / C.-Y. Hsiang -- 12. The Good Earth Of China’s Model Province / Chen Han-Seng -- 13. Notes On China’s Unused Uplands / Pierre Gourou -- 14. Rural Bankruptcy In China / Leonard T.K. Wu -- 15. Merchant Capital And Usury Capital In Rural China / Leonard T.K. Wu -- 16. Rural Cooperatives In China / Paul C. Hsu -- 17. Government As An Obstacle To Industrialization: The Case Of Nineteenth-Century China / Dwight H. Perkins -- 18. Handicraft And Manufactured Cotton Textiles In China, 1871–1910 / Albert Feuerwerker -- 19. The Crisis In The Chinese Cotton Industry / Leonard T.K. Wu -- 20. The Chinese Cotton Industry Under Wartime Inflation / Rockwood Q.P. Chin -- 21. Jingdezhen As A Ming Industrial Center / Michael Dillon -- 22. The Hopei Pottery Industry And The Problem Of Modernisation / J. B. Tayler -- 23. Industrial Development Of Mainland China, 1912–1949 / John K. Chang -- 24. Rural Reconstruction In China / Leonard S. Hsü -- 25. The Role Of Rural Industries In Under-Developed Areas / Joseph E. Stepanek and Charles H. Prien -- 26. The Rise Of Land Tax And The Fall Of Dynasties In Chinese Histories / Wang Yü-Ch’üan -- 27. An Analysis Of The Land Tax Burden In China, 1650–1865 / Ts’ui-Jung Liu and John C. H. Fei -- 28. Buddhist Monasteries And Four Money-Raising Institutions In Chinese History / Lien-Sheng Yang -- 29. China’s Postwar Finances / Frank M. Tamagna -- 30. Financial Problems In China’s War And Postwar Economy / Frank M. Tamagna -- 31. The Financial Stability Of The Nanking Government / Kate Mitchell -- 32. Hsin Chuang: A Study Of Chinese Village Finance / Sidney D. Gamble -- 33. The Salt Merchants Of Yang-Chou: A Study Of Commercial Capitalism In Eighteenth-Century China / M. Dillon -- 34. The Wool Trade Of North China / A. H. Rasmussen -- 35. Notes On The Early Ch’Ing Copper Trade With Japan / John Hall -- 36. The Merchant Network In 16th Century China / Timothy Brook -- 37. Transport And Marketing In The Development Of The Jingdezhen Porcelain Industry During The Ming And Qing Dynasties / Michael Dillon -- 38. Japan’s Economic Relations With China / Roy Hidemichi Akagi -- 39. Japanese Penetration In Southernmost China / Chen Han-Seng -- 40. The Sino-Japanese Currency War / D. K. Lieu -- 41. Men, Money And Land / Owen Lattimore -- 42. North China In A Japanese Economic Bloc / Russell G. Shiman.

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The development of China’s economy has long been an enigma to Western historians. Did it consist of centuries of stagnation followed by a period of collapse or was it a process of steady development, reaching a high point by the eighteenth century? What is certain is that China’s economic growth never developed into a full industrial revolution and China was overtaken by the West, but the reasons for this are highly contested both within and outside China. Topics of the Key Papers here include land use and land ownership, handicraft industries and early industrialization, trade and commerce, transport and communication and taxation and finance. It begins with papers on the earliest development of the economy in the Qin and Han dynasties, but concentrates on the periods of greatest interest and most significant development, namely the commercial revolution of the Song dynasty, the industrial and commercial expansion of the mid-Ming and the impact of Western and Japanese trade and investment in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.